Environmental degradation caused by intensive animal agriculture creates downstream welfare harms for wild animals that are rarely included in welfare impact assessments.
Environmental welfare impacts from animal agriculture extend far beyond the farm gate. Deforestation for soy protein production that feeds pigs and poultry directly destroys wildlife habitat, displacing and killing the animals that depended on it. The animals that survive habitat loss face fragmented landscapes with reduced food security and increased human conflict. Nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from livestock operations creates algal blooms and oxygen-depleted dead zones where marine animals die. Climate emissions from livestock contribute to the thermal stress, habitat loss, and extreme weather events that create welfare crises across wild animal communities. The full welfare cost of animal agriculture includes all of these downstream effects on wild animals who had no part in human food production decisions.